Disposable cups, utilized for coffee, tea, and other beverages, are typically formed from paper, cellular plastic foam, or other plastic materials. In most cases, such disposable cups have smooth sides and are not equipped with handles.
The main problem with paper or noncellular plastic materials for disposable cups, is the poor insulation characteristics of such materials. For this reason, hot beverages, such as coffee or tea, can be hot to the touch and prevent a consumer from conveniently holding the cup. Even cups having good insulation characteristics, such as insulating foam cups, can become hot, or wet to the touch, and difficult to handle.
A second problem associated with disposable cups is the difficulty of handling such cups when no handles are present. Examples of U.S. patents granted on inventions providing handles to cups and cans include U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,583 to Noon, U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,067 to Effertz, U.S. Pat. No. 4,874,109 to Cook and U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,633 to Brink et al.
A problem associated with prior art attachable cup handles is the requirement that the cup or beverage container be of a single size for a particular handle. Beverage containers of various sizes therefore require various sizes of cup handles.